Quiet riot

The troubles in Bradford have been seen as Asian men reacting with traditional male aggression to racism. But where are the voices of the women who, in reality, are the backbone of the community - and are slowly beginning to change it?
Helen Carter reports

They are the backbone of their community: the carers, nurturers and educators of future generations. Yet in the aftermath of Bradford's riots, the voices of Asian women have been notably absent.

Bradford is the latest city to be caught up in the racial unrest which has swept through northern towns this summer, stoked up by agitators from the BNP. And, perhaps inevitably, the focus has been on the young men fighting on the streets. Responses to the unrest have been dominated by male politicians, male senior police officers and male community leaders. So far, the views of Asian women have been largely ignored.

So what do they really think? In an independent survey of young people published yesterday, Asian girls in the area cited family pressure rather than fear of racism as the likeliest obstacle to realising their ambitions.

Clearly women in Bradford are facing just as many challenges as their male counterparts. Perhaps the most dramatic expression of this is what this week has been called the town's newest problem - heroin use among young Asian women. Although there are only 10 registered users, it's a significant leap from a few years ago when the authorities knew of none. Given the secrecy surrounding the problem, the likelihood is that there are more non-registered dependents.

Naseem (not her real name) is 25 years old and has been smoking heroin for two years. She is the mother of a young daughter who has since been adopted because of her drug problems. "I was depressed and I got in with the wrong people," she explains when asked why she started using the drug. "I have never injected it and I never would - I would be too frightened to do that.

"My boyfriend was selling it and I started using it. He is in prison now. I have to keep it hidden because if people in the community find out, it can become quite dangerous as you would be under a lot of pressure because of the shame."

Dr Michael Ross, who works with drug users in a unit at the edge of the city centre, says it is still very rare for Asian women to use drugs, though he has noted an increase. In Urdu, there is a word which describes the desire to conform - munasib . For Asian women, taking street drugs, smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol is not acceptable behaviour. Yet some women do not conform, Ross says. "A small number of Asian women smoke tobacco through a hookah, but this is the older generation, and probably represents less than 5% of women."

He adds that it is more usual for Asian families to abuse the prescription drug co-proxamol rather than illegal street drugs.

Aktar, 50, is more typical of an Asian drug user. He has been smoking heroin since 1982, following a painful back operation. "I started using it to ease the pain," he says. "Or that was my excuse, anyway."

He says that it is still very rare for Asian women to smoke heroin. "I think they would only take it if they had left their families and become independent. In all this time, smoking heroin is something I have only ever done with men. For a woman to do it would be like chopping an arm off."

Heidi Safira Mirza, professor of racial equality studies at Middlesex University, believes that the question of drug use distracts from the real issues. "Asian women are the people who have the social and emotional capital to keep things afloat within the community," she says, "but they are often ignored.

"It is such a cliche to say black and Asian women are invisible from mainstream analysis of race relations issues, but it is true. You are either black (and male) or white (and female.) To be both is a great inconvenience to policymakers and political leaders."

She argues that it is always assumed that it is a man's world and the male youth make changes by getting heard in the public arena of the streets. But this is the masculine model of change, says Mirza, that underpinned Brixton's Scarman report 20 years ago and has shaped our responses to racial uprisings ever since.

Lord Ouseley - the former chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, who has just completed a study in Bradford - asked yesterday why nothing has been learned from the past. Mirza offers her own analysis: "It is simple - in the past they always asked the wrong questions and got the wrong answers. No one looks at the quiet industriousness and community building that minority ethnic women engage in behind the barricades. They are the real change-makers - the backbone of the community."

She points to the lack of resources to build infrastructure through women's networks and notes that women are absent in the social exclusion unit's neighbourhood renewal report that drives the government's regeneration agenda.

"In the end, we just keep going round in circles," she adds, "with a negative male analysis of male disaffection and alienation and the same old racial stereotypes of Asian women as hapless domestic victims endures in our minds."

Maureen Grant, a development officer for the West Yorkshire Racial Justice Programme, has worked in Bradford for 18 years. She says there is now a distance between young Asian men and women. "For men, the issue is of identity and feeling different from the community," she says. "There is a more negative response by men, with aggressive behaviour. It is slightly different for women because their position is different. In a lot of cases, when the time comes to get married, their parents will seek a husband for them from abroad. The young men might see this and say: 'Where do I fit into all this?'"

Women, on the other hand, are better practised at setting up support networks. Grant believes that there are many more opportunities for women nowadays, thanks to women's groups that have formed in the area.

"These have transformed women's lives," she says. "About 10 years ago women would not have been coming out of their homes, never mind going down the road to community centres to get jobs and become educated."

Generation plays its part, given that most of the Asian women who are now working are under 40, although many are part-time workers due to childcare commitments.

As increasing numbers of this younger generation organise and empower one another, Grant believes that it's only a matter of time before their voices are heard, too.